Tempered, gradual animation, the methodical restrain of sensations and energies, the equilibrium of sickness and health in each creature--this is nature's essence, its immutable law, this is what it's based on and what it adheres to.

What a magnificent body, how I should like to see it on the dissecting table.

Take what you can yourself, and don't let others get you into their hands; to belong to oneself, that is the whole thing in life.

To tell about a drunken muzhik's beating his wife is incomparably harder than to compose a whole tract about the 'woman question.'

He was the soul of politeness to everyone -- to some with a hint of aversion, to others with a hint of respect.

I agree with no one's opinion. I have some of my own.

Most people can't understand how others can blow their noses differently than they do.